Upper: Photograph of 1 Water Street Residence after elevation. Lower: Streetscape change diagram for 1 Water Street, with another historic house (3 Water Street) built with the same design on its side. Source: Julia F. Martin Architects.
Julia F. Martin Architects is an architectural firm located in Charleston, South Carolina. Specialized in residential, commercial, and preservation design projects, it designed 1 Water Street — a structurally elevated historic residence in Charleston’s waterfront that sensitively responds to local historic environment and historic architectural forms. As the first historic brick structure that was structurally raised in Charleston, the residence now resides above a full-story concrete foundation cladded in matching light blue stucco, and embellished by a pair of elegant L-shaped stairs leading to the elevated main entrance; arched door openings are made on the new ground floor, with restrained forms that reference the building’s original design. Overall, 1 Water Street’s elevation design integrates a number of streetscape mitigation strategies that add to the symmetry and character of the historic residence. As a successfully designed elevation project, it was featured in the Elevated Buildings Walking Tour offered by Keeping History Above Water 2021 Conference in Charleston.
This interview was carried out on Feb. 6, 2023 over Zoom, with Ms. Julia F. Martin, AIA, principal of Julia F. Martin Architects, who also serves on the City of Charleston's Board of Architectural Review (BAR-S); and Ms. Erin Lanier, Preservation Professional at Julia F. Martin Architects. In this interview, they shared insights on Charleston's building elevation practice from the architect's perspective, and envisioned further changes in local historic urban forms as well as heritage resilience planning and policy-making. For more information on the 1 Water Street project, please watch this timelapse video of its structural elevation process.
“We’ve been thinking of appropriate elevation design strategies for local historic buildings for years, and we’re confident that local historic buildings are able to be designed for flood resilience in a way that respects their historic characters."
Ziming Wang: It seems that in Charleston, flood adaptation and building elevation are becoming increasingly popular among historic homeowners, and are potentially changing the preservation design market. How many historic buildings are flood adapted in Charleston’s historic districts? Besides 1 Water Street, how many flood adaptation commissions have come to you?
Julia Martin & Erin Lanier: Hundreds of buildings, probably — if you take any form of flood adaptation into account, and also consider the historic building stock outside historic districts. We believe that more than 100 adaptation projects within historic districts have been designed and approved, but not all of them got built. After flood impacts or due to dilapidation, many homeowners would have to rebuild the foundation anyways; and that is a good opportunity for them to lift their houses by a few feet.
We ourselves have done several designs for the elevation of historic residences — but the actual construction of elevation projects remains pretty cost-prohibitive, so whether these designs are going to be built depends on whether or when our clients choose to commit the financial resources.
Ziming Wang: Speaking of the cost of elevation projects — to what extent would financial incentives such as FEMA grants or National Park Service grants be helpful to property owners?
Julia Martin & Erin Lanier: These financial incentives may seem like an opportunity, but we haven’t personally seen any project funded under government grants or subsidies yet. There seems to be a long application cycle and considerable amounts of bureaucracy associated with these programs, which may hamper homeowners’ willingness to participate. Also, some FEMA grants require properties to have had severe repetitive loss (SRL); but since property prices are becoming higher and higher in Charleston’s historic downtown, it’s generally hard for homes to meet the bar, which requires either 4 or more separate flood insurance claim payments, or 2 or more payments of which the combined value exceeds the property’s value. Furthermore, many of the more upscaled historic residences in Charleston are self-insured; and with the high cost of flood adaptation, homeowners don’t necessarily have the sense of urgency to retrofit just for lowered premium rates.
Ziming Wang: The design of 1 Water Street is highly laudable. The collection of streetscape design treatments you’ve adopted made the new foundation and stairs an integral part of the historic residence; and I also like the arched doors on the ground floor which both clearly reference historic forms and achieve identifiability through restrained forms. How did these creative design solutions come into place? How have your familiarity with local historic buildings translated into flood adaptation projects?
Julia Martin & Erin Lanier: We’ve been thinking of appropriate elevation design strategies for local historic buildings for years — even before structural elevation became a permitted and recommended treatment by local Board of Architectural Review (BAR). You know, BAR historically rejected elevation proposals for historic buildings; but after the back-to-back hurricanes that happened between 2015 and 2017, they started to change their mindset and began producing design and policy guidance for elevation projects. Julia was there back in the day for BAR’s workshops where architects, preservationists and other stakeholders voted for recommended design treatments in the elevation of historic buildings; these workshops led to the production of Charleston’s Design Guidelines for Elevating Historic Buildings published in 2019. Full-floor addition when significant height changes are planned is actually one of the things that are recommended by the guidelines. (Note: For more details on the making of the Charleston guidelines, see the interview with Ms. Erin Minnigan conducted as part of this project’s interview series).
Speaking of the 1 Water Street project itself, we had a checklist of priorities — goals listed on the top are functionality, FEMA regulation compliance, and historic integrity and character. These goals helped us to rule out unsuitable design strategies, and finally reach a logical and graceful solution. Also, many of Charleston’s residences are historically built on raised foundations or basements, which served as a template for our design.
Ziming Wang: I learned that besides practicing as an architect, you also serve on the Board of Architectural Review; so how has the close connection between preservation policy-makers and architects in Charleston helped guide the transformation of historic buildings towards flood resilience?
Julia Martin & Erin Lanier: Charleston actually has a “City Architect” position, and there has been a close relationship and mutual respect between architects and city officials who review preservation design projects. The joint effort between architects, city officials, and other stakeholders was crucial in the development of the Design Guidelines for Elevating Historic Buildings that we just mentioned; informal discussions with BAR staff also helped us navigate details in our project design. Let’s take 1 Water Street for example — the city has a 1 ft freeboard height requirement for substantial improvement projects, as compared to 2 ft for new construction projects. This might not seem significant, but it was important for us to get the standards right. Due to the tight space of the site, the project would not happen as it is if any additional freeboard height was required.
Furthermore, Charleston has a major section of population that are passionate about climate resilience and historic preservation — which leads to strong public awareness about the city’s climate resilience initiatives and guideline-making processes.
Ziming Wang: And 1 Water Street was the first brick structure ever structurally raised in Charleston, right? Any technical challenges associated with elevating a masonry — instead of wood-frame — structure?
Julia Martin & Erin Lanier: Yes, it was incredibly complicated indeed. We actually had three teams of engineers on site — besides the contractor responsible for elevating the building, there was a team of geotechnical engineers that worked on stabilizing the ground for the temporary support system, and another team that worked on the new foundation structure, which was built in concrete masonry units (CMUs). As a result, this project would cost 3-4 times more than a typical elevation project for wood-frame houses. Besides the engineering teams, We also have to give credit to our clients, who are brave and evermore committed to this project; as well as to our building elevation contractor, who has extensive experience in elevating and moving large-scaled, masonry buildings.
Ziming Wang: In parallel with flood adaptation interventions on buildings, there has been a rising discussion on resilient landscape design — elements such as planting, rain gardens, and pervious surfaces, etc. How do you evaluate these landscape features in Charleston’s historic urban environment?
Julia Martin & Erin Lanier: Of course, these landscape features would enhance the resilience of urban lots and sites — however, the problem seems to be that there hasn’t been any design code and enforcement mechanism established. Since BAR’s purview is largely limited to historic structures themselves, the enforcement of resilient landscape design and permeable surfaces will need to involve other city agencies such as the Building Department, Department of Public Service, and Department of Stormwater Management. We are eager to see more initiatives and regulations made on this front. In the Dutch Dialogue held by the city in 2019, experts discussed the prospect of strategically allowing the water to flow into tidal wetlands and barrier islands on the coast, and more comprehensively redesigning the city’s relationship with water; such large-scale proposals on landscape adaptation may also be relevant to your question, and contribute to the city and region’s flood resilience.
Ziming Wang: With hundreds of flood adaptation projects going on, how would you imagine Charleston’s future historic streetscape?
Julia Martin & Erin Lanier: Well, there might short-term changes as well as long-term changes. If you come back in 40-50 years, you’ll probably see more historic buildings elevated, and possibly the construction of the seawall currently proposed by US Army Corps of Engineers; if you are thinking of 100 years from now, then even more significant changes may have happened. We certainly hope that besides the city’s large-scale infrastructural and landscape solutions, more people could get on board to adapt their homes for flood resilience; but the reality is that some are still waiting to see what the government or city could do, before they are willing to commit their own financial resource. The BAR saw a flurry of application after the major hurricane events several years ago; these storm and flood events are — in some senses — wake-up calls for homeowners, preservationists and architects.
Ziming Wang: And it comes to our final question — from the architect’s perspective, what is the biggest challenge in the flood adaptation of Charleston’s historic buildings? What changes would you like to see in the field of heritage resilience?
Julia Martin & Erin Lanier: The first thing we can think of is that more financial incentives from FEMA or other governmental agencies would certainly be of great help, since the high price of building elevation has prohibited some homeowners from undertaking flood adaptation interventions. Speaking of design guidelines and design strategies for historic buildings, there has been a large amount of thought put into local policy-making, and we’re confident that local historic buildings are now able to be designed for flood resilience in a way that respects their historic characters. Finally, we’d be excited to see the emergence of local house movers and lifters that are able to perform complicated elevation projects — like 1 Water Street.
* This interview text has been transcribed and edited based on the interviewer’s notes.
Comments